"I told the coaches to step aside and said, 'Bron, you take over the huddle.'"

[KI4MVP]

He did last year.

That is all, continue your discussion

oops - you're right - McGrady was out for the playoffs last year so he's still a 2nd round virgin even though his team isn't.

 

[Randolphkeys]

Millsap had played two full seasons and was nearly 24yrs old before he started game consistently, and that only occurred because of injuries to Boozer. Even though he played arguably better than Boozer as their starting PF, and even with all the garbage coming from Boozer and all the attempts to trade him- Millsap has not started a single game this season.

CJ Miles got starts when he was young due to injuries to AK47 and the lack of a SG, eventually Sloan decided to start two PGs (Fisher + Williams) rather than continue with Miles or Brewer.

Basically, necessity is the mother of playing rookies.

When we had a hole at SG due to Larry Hughes's injuries, Mike Brown tried Shannon Brown, Dan Gibson, and eventually decided to go with a Sloan reject - using Pavs (who was just 22yrs old when Mike Brown was starting him at SG).

There was no necessity to start Hickson. We could have gone with a 3 man big rotation and gone small while continuing to allow him time to acclimate to the league. Ferry made the decision to force feed him in to the starting lineup in spite of the fact that he'd done nothing to deserve the opportunity, and we're fortunate it didn't backfire. We're also very fortunate that JJ has bought in to the garbage-man role and isn't trying to do too much ala Shannon Brown.

Anyway, Sloan is a good coach, but personally I think he's lost touch with his team numerous times and it's basically cost the Jazz entire seasons. Their level of play has been very up and down playing with the top-contenders some weeks, and playing like an 8th seed another.

Kirilenko had people talking about quadruple doubles when he came in to the league, and while Utah decided to pay him like a superstar, he never developed in to one. He had DPOY level talent, but he's more of a defensive specialist. In fact he hasn't seemed the same since the Jazz brought in Boozer. Speaking of Boozer, Avon mentioned that players can just improve defensively over time, but Boozer is proof that is just not the case at all. They need to be pushed to play D and Sloan hasn't been able to get Boozer to step up his D. Mehmet Okur would be more than just a gimmick if he actually played some defense.

Illgauskus on the other hand has become a very solid defender, even with players like Gooden protecting his back rather than a super shotblocker/defender like AK47.

If Sloan was stressing defense like Mike Brown and getting his guys to step up their defense like Mike Brown, then they've had the offensive fire power needed to do some damage, but they didn't so they don't.

You are counter-pointing for the sake of counter-pointing. We have always basically agreed on Mike Brown, so what are you trying to prove here?

Sloan is a master of working young players into the rotation. Questioning the obvious doesn't deserve a response.

The Cavs have the advantage of LeBron's charisma and star power to bring in veteran talent, while Sloan has lured a few veterans to a salty desert with strong coaching and developed young players. Okur and Boozer showed no signs of defensive ability before they landed in Utah, so I don't see how that is Sloan's doing. Kirilenko was a skinny late first rounder with no offense but outstanding understanding of defensive rotations before he landed in Utah, which you know. Sloan has been able to get the most out of his limited abilities, as he has with nearly a hundred limited players in the middle of frickin' nowhere Utah.

Twenty bucks says you get the last word on this subject, jon.

 

[MoFlo]

Twenty bucks says you get the last word on this subject, jon.

I gave up in the other threads too, just wasn't worth it anymore..

 

[Jon]

You are counter-pointing for the sake of counter-pointing. We have always basically agreed on Mike Brown, so what are you trying to prove here?

Sloan is a master of working young players into the rotation. Questioning the obvious doesn't deserve a response.

I thought I demonstrated very clearly that the rotational moves you mentioned were all reactionary.

If you don't want to actually discuss anything, than why are you even posting?

I am right because the world agrees with me and not you? Did you really say that to LJ4MVP?

Really, now.

What's next?

I'm right, you're wrong ... nyah nyah nyah nyah?

C'mon, Randolph you can do far better than this.

 

[Jon]

I gave up in the other threads too, just wasn't worth it anymore..

Pretty good choice there, given in your last reply to me you somehow came to the conclusion that if Mike Brown whitewashes his comments to protect his trust with the players, that everything he says can't be trusted.

 

[AvonCavsFan]

I have never said Sloan was a great coach...I am saying Mike Brown is an average coach. I think the vast majority of coaches in the NBA are just average.

On some of the prior comments:

If you don't think Sloan preaches defense just as much as Brown, well then I am not sure what you are watching. Boozer is just not a good defensive player, he is not the type of athlete Andy is, he could never do some of the things Andy does on defense. If Boozer was here we would be complaining about his defense, I promise you. Okur sucks as a defender mainly because he is not fast and unlike Z, he is not 7'3 with long arms.....and as good as Stockton and Malone were, you didn't exactly think defense when you thought of them did you?

Our defense is as good as the players playing it: You can go look up all the stats, I am going to go off of memory. This year when Delonte and Andy both play I am betting our defensive numbers are much better than when they both don't play. A few years back our playoff defense was better because we had Delonte and Ben Wallace in the playoffs and only for a short time in the regular season. As much as some of you hated Larry Hughes, he was a pretty good defender when he played during our finals run, and Z, while not a great shot blocker his height altered a lot of shots. Andy and Lebron were our main young players who have improved each year in the league, you guys think this is all Mike Brown???

Paul Silas last year here we won 42 games.

Brown won 50,50, and 45 his first three years.....your telling me we wouldn't have done that with pretty much any coach as long as Lebron was on this team? Last year we won 66 games, but that coincides with the talent level being higher even higher with Mo coming in, no hold out for Andy, Delonte and Wally and Ben being here for training camp and Lebron taking another leap up in his level of play.

As for Orlando last year, EVERY one knew we had to either stop Howard OR the three point shooters...and we did NEITHER the way our defense was designed. I just wish we could have seen how we would have done had we just played the game straight up....we over thought that series.

As for the topic on this thread, letting Lebron take over a huddle is not that big a deal.

 

[Joe Henderson]

Brown won 50,50, and 45 his first three years.....your telling me we wouldn't have done that with pretty much any coach as long as Lebron was on this team? Last year we won 66 games, but that coincides with the talent level being higher even higher with Mo coming in, no hold out for Andy, Delonte and Wally and Ben being here for training camp and Lebron taking another leap up in his level of play.

As for Orlando last year, EVERY one knew we had to either stop Howard OR the three point shooters...and we did NEITHER the way our defense was designed. I just wish we could have seen how we would have done had we just played the game straight up....we over thought that series.

These arguments go both ways. Yes, he won more games with more talent, of course. But then how can you slam him for not winning as many games with inferior talent? A team that started Larry Hughes, Sasha Pavlovic and Drew Gooden went to the Finals.... that's not too shabby... And yes, the holdouts held the team back and Lebron being younger and less experienced contributed to fewer wins earlier.

And without a doubt, Mike Brown has also grown as a coach.

as for the Orlando series... that's been dissected here countless times. The Cavs obviously didn't have the right personnel. then they went out and addressed that problem. So now comes the eating of the pie.

I'm not saying Mike Brown is flawless, far from it, but damn, we are talking about the most successful coach in franchise history and a guy who will have won over 280 NBA games before the age of 40... His winning percentage right now is .642...

 

[KI4MVP]

Utah didn't attract Boozer and Okur because of Sloan, they got them because they could pay them a lot more money that they could get staying where they were. It's really no different than how we got Hughes or how Chicago got Ben Wallace.

 

[steveo]

So we are all on agreement here then that MBrown is a great "head" coach because he is doing an excellent job managing this team. I would agree on that point.

I also do like Lebron taking over in timeouts also. Guy is one of the best basketball minds of all time. Theres no reason to believe he doesn't observe and react to what the opposition is giving him, during a live game, as opposed to schemeing against a team using film footage.


However, Brown's substitution patterns are too stoic. He needs to have a better degree of assessing a players skillset, and min/maxing those skillsets to not only work together as a team, but to be able to neutralize what what other coachs are trying to do.

I feel its a fair gripe, and anyone who has doesn't see this the major weakness in our coaching I feel may be abit naive, or not able to feel the flow of a game.

 

[DougHeil]

These arguments go both ways. Yes, he won more games with more talent, of course. But then how can you slam him for not winning as many games with inferior talent? A team that started Larry Hughes, Sasha Pavlovic and Drew Gooden went to the Finals.... that's not too shabby... And yes, the holdouts held the team back and Lebron being younger and less experienced contributed to fewer wins earlier.

And without a doubt, Mike Brown has also grown as a coach.

as for the Orlando series... that's been dissected here countless times. The Cavs obviously didn't have the right personnel. then they went out and addressed that problem. So now comes the eating of the pie.

I'm not saying Mike Brown is flawless, far from it, but damn, we are talking about the most successful coach in franchise history and a guy who will have won over 280 NBA games before the age of 40... His winning percentage right now is .642...

Last year MB didn't really have to make any urgent decisions during games in the regular season. He didn't have to make any in the playoffs until we faced the Magic. In my opinion, he blew decisions made during the games. I and others would have done things differently. He was slow to make changes and did a bad job of adjusting to what the Magic were doing.

I am seeing a very different MB so far this year. I don't know if it can be addressed simply by the fact he has LOTS more options this year, or if he really did learn from that Magic series. The combinations of five players on the floor is more than I've ever seen. Even Shaq and Andy together on the floor last night seemed to work better than in the past. He seems to be leaving the guys on the floor if they are working at that time, and only making subs when needed... one player at a time. He didn't do that last year, and certainly did not do that in the Magic series. He's moving away from a set sub time and set time cards. He seems to be making much quicker decisions as well and is adjusting to what the other team is doing quicker. Brown has made great strides in Managing the team from his first year until now. His only step back was with Z. On other decisions he is making this year, I see vast improvement.

 

[Joe Henderson]

I am seeing a very different MB so far this year. I don't know if it can be addressed simply by the fact he has LOTS more options this year, or if he really did learn from that Magic series. The combinations of five players on the floor is more than I've ever seen. Even Shaq and Andy together on the floor last night seemed to work better than in the past. He seems to be leaving the guys on the floor if they are working at that time, and only making subs when needed... one player at a time. He didn't do that last year, and certainly did not do that in the Magic series. He's moving away from a set sub time and set time cards. He seems to be making much quicker decisions as well and is adjusting to what the other team is doing quicker. Brown has made great strides in Managing the team from his first year until now. His only step back was with Z. On other decisions he is making this year, I see vast improvement.

I agree, he is a lot more flexible and like you said, it obviously has to do with having more options. Last year, a lot of the choices were between cutting off your left arm and right arm. Give up some defense to generate some offense? Shut down the perimeter to concede size inside? Get some rebounding at the risk of inviting the hack-a-Ben?

This year i've seen a vastly different approach indeed and a lot more flexibility. He is indeed playing matchups -- which actually led to the Z debacle. Even last night, he happily rode Delonte and the reserves when they were extending the lead and started to bring in the first team when Milwaukee began scoring again. So yeah, i would say there is improvement there as well.

 

[JayDub]

I agree, he is a lot more flexible and like you said, it obviously has to do with having more options. Last year, a lot of the choices were between cutting off your left arm and right arm. Give up some defense to generate some offense? Shut down the perimeter to concede size inside? Get some rebounding at the risk of inviting the hack-a-Ben?

This year i've seen a vastly different approach indeed and a lot more flexibility. He is indeed playing matchups -- which actually led to the Z debacle. Even last night, he happily rode Delonte and the reserves when they were extending the lead and started to bring in the first team when Milwaukee began scoring again. So yeah, i would say there is improvement there as well.

I've seen it too. You gotta keep this in mind with Coach Brown; as LeBron goes so does he. If we win and LBJ stays so does MB. If we don't and LBJ leaves you gotta think he's the first person to catch the blame and be even more heavily scrutinized than he is now. He knows this. This year is his year to prove to everyone that he isn't a head on a stick and he's a huge reason that the cavs have been as successful as they are. I think we'll continue to see him being more of a coach this year. I think other than Z incident (and even including that because it was a good move based on match ups) he's done a pretty good job thus far.

 

[Jon]

I have never said Sloan was a great coach.

At least we agree on something.

I am saying Mike Brown is an average coach. I think the vast majority of coaches in the NBA are just average.

Well, we disagree there. IMO, it takes an above average coach to come in and convince players to do something that 95% of them hate doing: that is playing D. There's a reason Larry Brown keeps burning out and having to move on, after a while player's tune out the constant yelling and screaming and go back to doing what they feel like. Flip Saunders inherited a Detroit team that knew how to play D on cruise control, but while he improved them drastically on offense, without LB's constant focus on D they still took a step backward

If you don't think Sloan preaches defense just as much as Brown, well then I am not sure what you are watching. Boozer is just not a good defensive player, he is not the type of athlete Andy is, he could never do some of the things Andy does on defense. If Boozer was here we would be complaining about his defense, I promise you. Okur sucks as a defender mainly because he is not fast and unlike Z, he is not 7'3 with long arms.....and as good as Stockton and Malone were, you didn't exactly think defense when you thought of them did you?

That's the disconnect right there. If we played a man to man defense you'd be right, but Boozer has a wide body and a strong base. He doesn't need to be a supreme athlete to rotate and contest shots. Brown has a defensive system, and individual talent is just a bonus within that system.

Our defense is as good as the players playing it: You can go look up all the stats, I am going to go off of memory. This year when Delonte and Andy both play I am betting our defensive numbers are much better than when they both don't play. A few years back our playoff defense was better because we had Delonte and Ben Wallace in the playoffs and only for a short time in the regular season. As much as some of you hated Larry Hughes, he was a pretty good defender when he played during our finals run, and Z, while not a great shot blocker his height altered a lot of shots. Andy and Lebron were our main young players who have improved each year in the league, you guys think this is all Mike Brown???

But Andy and Delonte are not great individual defenders. Andy often gets beat in 1v1 situations, and West is a tweener who throughout his career was either getting posted up by taller SGs, or beaten off the dribble by faster PGs. IMO, they've become noted defenders in Cleveland because they're very good system defenders. For instance, in yesterday's game there was a play where Jennings blew by West, but West got him in the end by blocking his shot from behind, but that never would've happened if a big didn't rotate over in time to block off Jenning's path to the hoop. The team D allowed West to use his individual ability.

Paul Silas last year here we won 42 games. Brown won 50,50, and 45 his first three years.....your telling me we wouldn't have done that with pretty much any coach as long as Lebron was on this team? Last year we won 66 games, but that coincides with the talent level being higher even higher with Mo coming in, no hold out for Andy, Delonte and Wally and Ben being here for training camp and Lebron taking another leap up in his level of play.

Well, given Hughes missed most of the season, Damon and Donyell were initially ineffective and ultimately one dimensional, and that we had to start Eric Snow at PG after having a guy with a skill set much like Mo that refused to play D under Silas once the hand check rules changed - yeah - I think 50-wins was pretty good.

The 66-wins was an exceptional achievement and exceeded all expectations. That's why Mike Brown won coach of the year. The other teams that have won 66+ games is a list of the greatest teams of all time.

As for Orlando last year, EVERY one knew we had to either stop Howard OR the three point shooters...and we did NEITHER the way our defense was designed. I just wish we could have seen how we would have done had we just played the game straight up....we over thought that series.

Me too. I think you have to go in to a series playing to your own strengths, but due to injuries throughout the season and in the playoffs we never really got a chance to work on that. Of course the year before we nearly knocked off the Celtics by going with the exact same strategy of using LeBron as a floating defender cheating off Rondo, so, it's hard to say if not cheating off Alston may have made things worse.

 

[AvonCavsFan]

All of the "great" moves MB is making are moves he would not have made without pressure from above. It took at least 2 closed door meetings after games with Ferry to get to where we are right now. The best part of that is he is going to get all of this credit for something he did not want to do.

We can go back and forth on this forever, it is opinions verse opinions though, no way to prove this unless they fired MB today. I am convinced if they did, we would not skip even one beat (as long as Mike Malone and Melvin Hunt stayed on to coach the offense and defense, let Lebron handle the huddles).

Both Andy and Delonte are great defenders no matter the system. Andy rarely gets beat in 1 on 1 situations. Delonte smothers the opposing player, sure occasionally they each get beat, this is the NBA, you are not going to stop every player every time. I am betting Lebron's defense is only good because of Brown also, right? Part of what makes Andy great at defense is his willingness to give up his body, very few players are willing to take the punishment he does.

Other teams rotate also, Mike Brown does not have a "patent" on it. I am convinced the smartest thing Mike Brown ever did was talk about defense to the media every other word, because it has convinced a lot of you that he has some secret "system". I sure wish he would have used that secret against the Magic (and your case of it "working" against the Celtics..umm we lost that series also, AND the main reason why is a WIDE OPEN Rondo nailed two 3's and shot 60% in game 5, sound familiar? Just put Alston in for Rondo and change the game # to three)

As for going to the finals, we were a pretty lucky team that year. The Pistons thought they could just turn it on whenever they wanted to, they shot like crap, Lebron had the game of his life in game 5 and Gibson the game of his life in Game 6. We drained the 24 second clock on pretty much every possession, thus why the scoring was way down in that series.

Like I said, no matter what Mike Brown would do, some of you would think it was the best. When we lose, it is a bad matchup, when we win it is MB's awesomeness.

 

[KI4MVP]

Like I said, no matter what Mike Brown would do, some of you would think it was the best. When we lose, it is a bad matchup, when we win it is MB's awesomeness.

Some here think that when we win, it's only because of the players, when we lose, it's all Mike Brown's fault.